Case in point
Meet Louise
Louise is 61 years old and has had to retire suddenly after suffering a herniated
disk. She is very worried about her memory: she feels her mind is going. She
has trouble remembering conversations with her kids even just a few hours
afterwards, and for the last few months she has been forgetting appointments.
She doesn’t dare tell anyone about this and tries to hide her
forgetfulness. She is attributing the problem to old age. Thirty years ago,
that’s probably what she would have been told, but not now! We now know
that memory loss is not always associated with normal aging. Louise went
through a major change by taking a sudden retirement and this could be
affecting her memory. The medications she is taking to help with the pain and
to sleep at night could also be causing forgetfulness. Worrying over her
memory lapses is making the problem worse as well. Her doctor could help
determine the cause of her memory loss, alter her prescriptions and give her
some tips for making her memory work more efficiently.
Meet John’s and Catherine’s mom
John and Catherine talk to their mother every day. In the last while, she has been having memory lapses far more frequently and often repeats the same stories. She also seems depressed and is isolating herself more and more. Even though they are trying to stimulate her memory, she has lost interest in day-to-day activities. They are attributing their mom’s forgetfulness to the fact that she is getting older. But their mother’s problems should actually be reported to a doctor because they are starting to prevent her from living independently. It might not be Alzheimer’s, but medical advice is needed.
